How Reality Shows Make Selling a Home Harder

Nowadays, everyone has seen an episode or two of Fixer Upper, Property Brothers, or Love It or List It. These home shows are a great way to get ideas for renovating and selling your home. However, they create unreasonable expectations for how the home-selling process usually goes. If you’re in the market to sell, take into consideration the following differences between reality TV and real life.

Renovations Aren’t as Easy as They Look

In just under 30 minutes, TV contractors take desolate homes and transform them into beautiful masterpieces. Renovating a home in real life is not that simple. Beyond the demo day montages and fast-forwarded installs is some serious work that needs to be done by qualified professionals. Some kitchens and other rooms can take up to a week to fully remove, even with professionals on the job.

If you’re thinking of doing a few touch-up projects before your next open house, you might want to reconsider. Many renovations take time and skills to complete, and if you don’t finish before your house hits the market, buyers will avoid your home like the plague. For example, when ordering kitchen cabinets, you have to wait an average of six to eight weeks for them to arrive.

Creative Staging Doesn’t Always Work

All of the homes on reality TV shows look beautiful, and that is thanks to professional staging of furniture, knickknacks, and other accent pieces. Unfortunately, most people lack the necessary design skills to replicate these perfect environments. Many homeowners add in décor items to bring creativity to their home, but these additions come off as tacky to buyers. Instead of trying to add flair, think about staging as a way to remove your personal taste and provide a clean, versatile look.

Profits Aren’t Always Sky-High

No matter what contractors do to a home on TV, the market value is always higher at the end of the show. Things don’t quite work like this when trying to sell a home. The money you put into renovations does not automatically add on the same monetary value to your home. Overall, you can make the biggest return on investment by renovating the bathroom or kitchen, with some specific areas seeing up to a 182 percent return.

Flipping a home works much the same way. On TV, the flippers always appear to make a bundle when they sell for thousands over what they paid. However, what the show fails to tell you is that you need to sell it for nearly 20 percent more than you paid for it just to break even with all of the transaction fees.

If you want to find the perfect balance between taking inspiration from reality shows and overdoing it, it’s best to confer with a knowledgeable real estate agent. They can guide you in the direction of current market trends and provide tips on the most valuable improvements you can make to your home when trying to sell.